‘Tis The Season: Put A RING On It!!!

Man, oh man, oh man…..LOVE is in the air! That’s right folks, it’s engagement season! Brace yourselves – your Facebook newsfeed is about to fill up with all sorts of mushy-gushy, lovey-dovey proposals (yippee!). I don’t know what your personal situation is – maybe you got engaged 30 something years ago, maybe yesterday…maybe you’re as single as a slice of Kraft cheese, and loving it. No matter your marriage engagement status – here’s my question to you: Are you engaged in your health and fitness? If not, get ready to finally settle down, and put a RING on it!

You Want To Be Engaged – Trust Me

Engagement in a particularly common topic for me, working in the school setting, as we spend a lot of our time, as educators, attempting to improve student engagement. When students are engaged in their classes, they have more fun, with fewer behavior issues, while retaining more information and generalizing what they’ve learned….to life. Which is, theoretically, the whole point of school – to get you ready for life, yes? Yes.

So what does it look like to be engaged? If we’re talking about a classroom setting, you would probably see “engaged” students…participating in the discussion, asking questions, sharing ideas, staying on task…maybe even smiling! Think about different conversations you might be having with one of your friends.

Topic #1: Plans for the awesome trip you have planned to somewhere sunny and 75 over Christmas break.

Off the top of your head, which one do you think might have you a little more engaged? I think we all know the answer…

Now think of all the benefits engagement has for students – more learning, more fun, fewer issues. You can reap these exact same benefits by becoming engaged in your own health and fitness. Wouldn’t it be nice to feel knowledgeable about what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it? Do you know the benefits of the style of workouts you do, or how many calories you eat in a day, maybe where those calories come from? Why did you start the routine you’re in? Is it working? If it is – why? If it isn’t – why not? You can find all of the answers to your questions by getting engaged, but in order to get engaged, you must first….put a RING on it 😉

Put A RING On It

You guessed it – I’m comin’ at ya with another acronym….because they’re awesome, and you need this one in order to remember these extremely important steps to getting yourself engaged! So lets put a RING on it, shall we?

Four Steps to Put a RING On It

1. Relate 2. Interact 3. Narrow Your Focus 4. Grow

Relate – In fitness, the first step to becoming engaged, is finding someone you can relate to. This might be a friend you already have who has similar fitness goals to you, or somebody you find on Instagram/Twitter/Facebook who has a similar story/journey/battle as you – it could be a family member, trainer – really anybody. If you can find someone you can relate to, you’re going to feel comfortable going to them for advice and support along the way.

You also don’t have to limit this to one person – the more people you connect with, through more outlets, the better! I should note, it is also extremely helpful if you find people who have achieved a goal similar to the one you currently have. Success leaves clues, and chances are they’re going to be able to give you some tips to help you get where you want to go.

Interact – Here’s where the engagement comes in. Once you have a person (more likely, persons) you can relate to – you must interact with them. This means: having discussions, asking questions, sharing ideas, what’s worked for you/what hasn’t, etc. etc. You can interact with people in so many different ways – face-to-face, Instrgram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, My Fitness Pal – seriously…it’s not even difficult anymore. All you have to do is type. Social media is an amazing way to learn more about fitness and, really, get direct access to some of the best professionals in the industry. Like posts, comment on them, participate in Q&As – it makes it fun, AND you get to learn something new – plus it makes the poster/blogger’s day when they get comments on their content. Find your “people” and interact with them, every day.

Narrow Your Focus– As you start to ask questions, and get your answers, you’ll begin to find areas that are of particular interest to you. If you want to get into body building, you might be especially interested in understanding supplements, and how to use them to get the results you’re looking for. If you’re an endurance athlete, you might be interested in learning how to most effectively train for different distances, climates, etc. For you nutrition junkies out there, you might get a real kick out of learning how different macronutrient ratios impact your energy levels, performance in the gym and body weight.

Whatever it is you’re most interested in – narrow your focus to that topic, and consume all of the content you can via books, blogs, video or every day posts from your favorite fitness professionals and enthusiasts. The focus you choose will likely be (and should be) closely related to achieving your current goal, and focusing on learning as much as you can in this area can really help speed that along, while giving you a sense of understanding and control over your progress. ***This does NOT mean you can’t learn annnnnnything else until you’ve learned absolutely everything about one single topic. Don’t be that guy 🙂

Grow – I’ll tell ya this…if you follow steps 1-3, you are setting yourself up for a TON of success, my friend. If you take the initiative to go out and make connections, share your ideas and experiences, ask questions, and then apply and follow through on the answers, while staying focused on your goals? There’s really no other choice but for you to grow. You’re going to make significant progress toward achieving your goal(s), and before you know it, you’ll be setting new ones. Seek out these opportunities to grow in your knowledge and understanding of your health and fitness, and you will drastically increase your odds of maintaining a fit and healthy lifestyle for many years to come.

That’s All Folks

So here’s to engagement season! No matter your relationship status, you can always find time to engage in your health and fitness. The steps are simple, and it will make your journey to a lifetime of fitness that much more fulfilling and, ultimately, successful! Put a down payment on that RING today 😉

Comment below and let me know your favorite way to get engaged in your health and fitness! What social media outlet to you use most often to engage with others? Have you found anybody who you feel you can really relate to? Let me know!

2 Responses

This was perfect. I’ve been thinking about engaging the last couple months but have found it hard to commit. For me a lot of it is about the food. Changing what I eat gives me more rapid results in how I look and feel. My body is super sensitive to thinks like sugar and yeast in breads and beer and turns me into a zombie when I have too much. I need to look up what you said about “how different macronutrient ratios impact your energy levels, performance in the gym and body weight.” Any advice on where start?
Thanks!

Mary! I’m SO glad you asked 🙂 You are already ahead of the game on determining what macronutrient ratios will work best for your body, by identifying how different foods make you feel. There are a lot of great fitness calculators on bodybuilding.com that will tell you how many calories you should consume (based on the information you provide) depending on if your goal is to lose fat, maintain your weight, or bulk up. Check this link out:

A common macronutrient split that works for most people is 40% of your calories coming from protein, 40% from carbs and 20% from fats. It sounds like some of those carb sources might actually translate to less energy for you, so you may want to play with increasing fats/decreasing carbs. Finding out exactly what works best for you will be an ongoing experiment, but since you’re so ENGAGED – you’ll probably arrive at the right formula for you before you know it 🙂

Another great source of information about nutrition and how the different macros impact your body, is YouTube. There are a ton of big names in the fitness industry who post videos frequently with all kind of info. Michael Morelli is a source that I really trust – give his channel a look!